Kingston's former lab employees angry about benefits being cut off

KINGSTON -- Former employees of the long-closed Kingston Municipal Laboratory are protesting the city's attempt to cut their medical and dental coverage.

About 10 former employees descended on City Hall Monday night to make their case to the Common Council's Finance/Economic Development Committee. They said they recently received letters from the city's Civil Service Office telling them that their coverage would end on Dec. 31.

They argued they are entitled to the benefits and said the city is breaking a promise made to them.

The letter from Jacqueline DeCicco, executive director of the Civil Service Office, said, in part, that those receiving the benefits are not entitled to them.

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"It appears that the sole basis for the payment of your health and dental insurance is the expired contract between the city and the Labor Units of the CSEA (Civil Service Employees Association)," the letter stated. "Legal counsel has advised the city that the agreement does not establish a legal basis for the payment of your health and dental benefits, as you were not retired from city employment.

"Such payments are an unconstitutional gift of public funds and cannot lawfully be continued," the letter added. "Therefore, please be advised that it is the city's intention to terminate such payments effective Dec. 31."

The letter, however, said if any of the ex-employees have documentation to prove they are entitled to the benefits, they should forward it to DeCicco's office.

Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo said on Tuesday that 30 former employees of the lab, which was on Broadway near Kingston Hospital, receive benefits. Of those, 16 are not entitled to the payments because, among other things, they did not became vested in the insurance plan, he said.

Gallo said the remaining 14 employees, who are retirees, now will have to contribute to their health insurance premiums, as other retired city employees do.

Gallo said the employees who are having their benefits terminated "resigned before the closing of the lab (in 1994) and then they came back, some several years later, to demand health insurance and were included by the prior administration, (which) enrolled them without any review or any consideration to whether they were eligible or if they paid as investees."

The mayor said the city will save about $100,000 by terminating the benefits and that the money will be put back in the city's general fund.

Gallo said it was "unfortunate" that such action needed to be taken but that all measures must be considered in trying to save city taxpayers money.

Town of Ulster resident Robert Styles, one of the former lab employees who attended Monday's meeting, said the ex-employees are entitled to the benefits under a 1991 contract agreement between the city and the lab employees' union.

"It is morally wrong," said Styles, who worked the lab for more than 30 years, said of the benefits termination.

Jackie Flanagan of Kingston, who worked at the lab for 27 years, said it will be a struggle to find different health insurance in such a short period of time.

The first hint that former employees of the lab might lose their benefits came just last month, when Gallo said the city would audit such payments in an effort to reduce the city's health-care costs

"It was (done) so caviler," Flanagan said.

Under Gallo's proposed city budget for 2013, Kingston will pay $7,112,518 for employee health insurance.